Unpublished manuscript prepared for the Ernst Strüngmann Forum:
Cultural Evolution May 27–June 1, 2012
Religious Prosociality: A Synthesis Ara Norenzayan Department of Psychology University of British Columbia 5
Joseph Henrich Departments of Psychology and Economics University of British Columbia 10
Edward Slingerland Department of Asian Studies University of British Columbia Abstract
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Religion is a ubiquitous aspect of human cultures; yet until recently, we knew relatively little
about its natural origins and effects on human minds and societies. This is changing, as scientific
interest in religion is on the rise. Debates about the evolutionary origins and functions of religion,
including its origins in genetic and cultural evolution, hinge on a set of empirical claims about
religious prosociality: whether, and through what particular psychological and cultural pathways,
20
certain religious beliefs and practices encourage prosocial behaviors. Here we synthesize and
evaluate the scientific literature on religious prosociality, highlighting both gaps and open
questions. Converging evidence from several fields suggests a nuanced pattern such that some
religious beliefs and practices, under specific socio-historical contexts, foster prosocial behaviors
among strangers. This emerging picture is beginning to reveal the psychological mechanisms
25
underlying religious prosociality. Further progress will depend on resolving outstanding puzzles,
such as whether religious prosociality exists in small-scale societies, the extent to which it is
constrained by in-group boundaries, and the psychology underlying various forms of nonbelief. All rights reserved by the author. No citing, abstracting, or other usage permitted.
Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
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1. Introduction It has long been argued that religions facilitate acts that benefit others at a personal cost, a
hypothesis that can be termed religious prosociality (Norenzayan and Shariff 2008). This idea
has a long history in the social sciences (e.g., Durkheim 1912/1995; Wilson 2002) and has
5
returned to center stage in recent debates about the evolutionary origins of religions (Bulbulia et
al 2008; Norenzayan and Shariff 2008; Atran and Henrich 2010). These debates revolve around
whether religion arose as cognitive byproducts of evolved cognitive biases (e.g., Boyer 2001,
2008; Barrett 2004; Lawson and McCauley 1990; Atran and Norenzayan 2004), whether it, or
some parts of it, is a genetic adaptation for cooperation either at the individual level (e.g., Bering
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2006, 2011; Johnson 2009; Sosis and Alcorta 2003; Schloss and Murray 2011), or through a
process of multi-level selection (Wilson 2002; Wade 2009). A third alternative synthesizes the
cognitive byproduct approach with cultural evolutionary theory (e.g., Richerson and Boyd 2005).
In this view, a suite of cognitive biases lead to intuitions that support religious beliefs. Some
cultural variants of these beliefs are then harnessed by cultural evolution and intergroup cultural
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competition to enable large-scale cooperation (e.g., Norenzayan and Shariff 2008; Norenzayan
and Gervais 2012; Atran and Henrich 2010; Henrich 2009; Slingerland et al this volume; see also
Wilson 2007).
Progress on these debates critically depends on a number of empirical claims about whether, and
through what specific pathways, religious beliefs and practices encourage prosociality. In
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surveying the evidence, we do not need, and do not offer, a strict definition of religion in terms
of necessary and sufficient features, as religion is best seen as a family resemblance construct
that consists of various converging elements (see for example, Atran and Norenzayan 2004;
Boyer 2001). As in any other scientific enterprise, we think an outline of the features of what is
“religion” cannot be decided a priori, but emerges out of years of rigorous empirical and
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theoretical research. The theoretical claims and debates about the origins of religion are
addressed elsewhere (Slingerland et al. this volume). Here we offer a non-exhaustive synthesis of
the key aspects of the growing empirical literature that competing evolutionary theories must
account for. We offer some conclusions, point to some apparent inconsistencies and possible
resolutions, debate methodological challenges, and finally, we point to outstanding questions for
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future research.
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
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2. Surveys of Religiosity and Self-­‐Reported Charitability One of the earliest empirical works linking religion to prosocial behavior comes from sociology.
There is a long line of survey findings done in the United States and elsewhere suggesting that
those who frequently pray and attend religious services (Christians and Jews of various
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denominations, as well as Muslims and Hindus) reliably report more prosocial behavior, such as
more charitable donations and volunteerism (Brooks 2006). Brooks reports, for example, that
91% of religious people (defined as those who attend religious services weekly or more often)
report donating money to charities, compared to only 66% secularists (defined as those who
attend religious services a few times a year or less or those who declare no religious affiliation).
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The results for volunteering time are 67% vs. 44%. This “charity gap” is consistent across
surveys, and remains after statistically controlling for income disparities, political conservatism,
marital status, education level, age, and gender. Some commentators cite these findings as
evidence that religious people are more prosocial than non-religious (Brooks 2006).
However, there are several limitations to these findings. One unresolved issue is whether this
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charity gap persists beyond the in-group boundaries of the religious groups (Monsma 2007).
Another is the extent to which this finding generalizes to more secularized societies with stronger
social safety nets, where governments have usurped the traditionally strong social functions of
religious charities (Norris and Inglehart 2004). Third, a more serious limitation of these findings
is that these surveys are based on self-reports of prosocial behavior, and are therefore open to
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several alternative interpretations (for a critique, see Norenzayan and Shariff 2008). There is a
long line of work in psychology showing that self-reports of socially desirable behaviors such as
charitability or honesty are often exaggerated, and are strongly influenced by social desirability,
impression management, or self-deception (Paulhus 1984). Therefore, the “charity gap” found in
these surveys may be more reflective of “appearing good,” rather than “doing good.” This
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interpretation is plausible since religiosity is positively associated with socially desirable
responding (e.g., Sedikides and Gebauer 2010). Finally, new experimental evidence suggests this
relationship is causal: religious reminders increase impression management concerns among
believers (Gervais and Norenzayan 2011). These findings raise serious questions about the
validity of relying on self-reports that assess charitable behavior or generosity. To address these
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
4
methodological limitations, experiments that assess prosocial behavioral (not self-report of
prosocial behavior) are necessary.
2. Correlating Religious Involvement and Prosocial Behavior In social psychology, Batson and colleagues systematically explored this question. In several
5
behavioral studies under anonymous conditions, researchers failed to find any reliable
association between religiosity and prosocial tendencies (Darley and Batson 1973). Subsequently,
several laboratory studies with Christian university student participants in the US, have found
that religious involvement does predict more prosocial behavior, but only when the prosocial act
could promote a positive image for the participant, either in their own eyes or in the eyes of
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observers (Batson et al. 1993).
Other behavioral studies have also found reliable associations between various indicators of
religiosity and prosociality, albeit under limited conditions. A study employing a common pool
resources game, which allowed researchers to compare levels of cooperation between secular
and religious kibbutzim in Israel (Sosis and Ruffle 2003), showed higher cooperation in the
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religious kibbutzim than in the secular ones; the effect was driven by highly religious men, who
engaged in daily and communal prayer, and took the least amount of money from the common
pool. A study conducted by Soler (in press), among members of an Afro-Brazilian religious
group, showed similar results: controlling for various socio-demographic variables, individuals
who displayed higher levels of religious commitment behaved more generously in a public goods
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economic game and reported more instances of both giving and receiving within their religious
community. Ahmed (2009) found similar results in a public goods game in a study conducted in
rural India with a Muslim population. Devout Muslim students in a madrassah contributed more
to a public good compared to a matched group of students in a secular school. The effect was
sizable. Whereas 15% of secular participants contributed nothing, only 2% did so in the more
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religious group.
Prosocial religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and many variants of Hinduism, endorse a
package of beliefs and practices revolving around powerful, omniscient, and morally involved
gods who demand credible displays of faith from their adherents. In an investigation spanning 15
societies of pastoralists and horticulturalists, Henrich et al. (2010) measured the association
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between religious participation and prosocial behavior in three standard bargaining games.
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
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Unlike previous studies, this one specifically tested the idea that participation in prosocial
religions engenders more prosocial behavior compared to participation in local religions that
typically do not have a prosocial dimension. Henrich and colleagues found that, controlling for a
host of demographic and economic variables, participation in a world religion (Christian or
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Muslim) increased offers in the Dictator Game by 6%, and in the Ultimatum game by 10%
(when the stake was standardized at 100).
Interestingly, however, world religion did not reliably predict offers in another economic game, a
Third Party Punishment Game that allowed people to punish others for not playing fairly. In this
experiment, people in some societies also made lower (less equal) offers. Analyzing the data
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from all three experiments indicates that adding the third party punishment drove out the
component of prosociality created by religion. This, combined with other recent findings
showing that secular and divine sources of punishment are perceived to be interchangeable
(Laurin et. al. in press), suggest that adding a third party punisher “replaced god” in a sense,
leading to both lower offers and no impact of religion in this experiment.
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There are several potential pathways through which religion might operate to increase
prosociality. One possible pathway, which we explain further below, is the supernatural
monitoring hypothesis: religious believers act prosocially to the extent that they experience being
under supernatural surveillance by watchful, moralizing gods (Norenzayan and Shariff 2008;
Bering 2011). Further, believing in constant divine surveillance might lead to a habitualization of
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certain prosocial behaviors. Relatedly, another potential complementary pathway involves
extravagant rituals or seemingly costly devotions (Slingerland et al. this volume). Such practices
can sustain greater prosociality and social solidarity because, as credible displays of deep faith,
they lead to more successful cultural transmission of these belief-ritual complexes (Henrich
2009). Alternatively, or in addition, ritual participation may serve as a cooperative signal,
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encouraging greater prosocial behavior (Sosis and Alcorta 2003). There likely are other
pathways as well (see Slingerland et al. this volume, for discussion).
The anthropological record is consistent with these ideas. In moving from the smallest scale
human societies to the largest and most complex, Big Gods – powerful, omniscient,
interventionist supernatural watchers who demand extravagant displays of loyalty– go from
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relatively rare to increasingly common (Roes and Raymond 2003; Swanson, 1966), and morality
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
6
and religion move from largely disconnected to increasingly intertwined (Wright 2009). As
societies get larger and more complex, ritual forms also change, becoming more frequent and
dogmatic, increasingly used to transmit and reinforce religious orthodoxy (Atkinson and
Whitehouse 2012). A recent cross-cultural study (Atkinson and Bourrat 2010) provides evidence
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that participation in prosocial religions goes hand in hand with a stricter moral enforcement of
norms. In a large global sample of 87 countries from the World Value Survey, beliefs about two
related sources of supernatural monitoring and punishment—God and the afterlife, as well as
frequency of religious attendance, were found to independently predict harsher condemnation of
a range of moral transgressions, such as cheating on taxes, or fare-skipping on public transport.
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Importantly, belief in a personal God was more strongly related to these outcomes than belief in
an abstract impersonal God.
3. Reconciling Inconsistent Findings on Religious Prosociality In recent laboratory studies conducted in Western societies (mostly with university students),
where prosocial behavior is measured in anonymity, individual differences in religious
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commitment typically fail to reliably predict prosocial behavior (for a discussion, see
Norenzayan and Gervais 2012). This is similar to earlier findings that indicate that religious
participants show greater prosocial tendencies when the prosocial act can enhance one’s selfimage, but that religiosity is a null-predictor when no such reputational incentives are available
(e.g., Batson et al 1993). These findings deserve more scrutiny. Why is it that religious
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involvement predicts prosocial behavior in some studies, but not others? Here we suggest three
explanations that resolve these inconsistencies.
One explanation is that, compared to a typical social psychology study with student samples,
reminders of religion are likely to be more chronically present in religious kibbutz, madrasahs,
and Candomble communities, where religious prayer and attendance are a daily part of life. This
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is important because any behavior is more likely to occur to the extent that concepts associated
with these behaviors are primed through situational cues (e.g., Bargh and Chartrand 1999).
Another factor is that prosociality in these communities clearly benefited in-group members
(despite being anonymous), whereas in psychological studies done in anonymous contexts, the
victim or the recipient of generosity typically is a total stranger. In the classic “Good Samaritan”
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Study (Darley and Batson 1973), for example, seminary students were led to walk past a stranger
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
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(actually, a confederate of the researcher) lying on the ground who appeared in need of help.
Levels or types of religious involvement failed to predict helping rates.
A third important factor that helps reconcile these null findings with the literature reviewed
above is cultural differences in the strength of secular institutions. Note that all of the studies that
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have found weak or no reliable associations between religiosity and prosociality have been
conducted in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD) samples
(Henrich et al. 2010), whereas all the studies that have found reliable associations have typically
been conducted in non-WEIRD samples. In WEIRD societies, high trust levels towards secular
institutions (the police, courts, governments) encourage high levels of prosocial behavior across
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the board (Hruschka and Henrich submitted paper) and might crowd out the influence of religion
on prosociality. Conversely, in societies with weak institutions, religion has no credible
alternative and is the main driver of broad prosociality. Consistent with this idea, in societies
with strong institutions such as Canada, experimentally induced subtle reminders of secular
authority (e.g., concepts such as police, court, judge) reduce believers’ reliance on religion as a
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source of morality (Gervais and Norenzayan in press). Furthermore, in a cross-national analysis,
it was found that, controlling for a number of relevant factors such as human development,
general trust, and individualism, believers are more trusting of atheists in politics if they are
culturally exposed to strong secular institutions as measured by the World Bank’s index
(Norenzayan and Gervais submitted paper).In summary, a growing number of behavioral studies
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have found associations between religious commitment and prosocial tendencies, especially
when secular sources of prosocial behavior are unavailable (i.e., weak institutions), reputational
cues are heightened (e.g., helping is not anonymous), and the targets of prosociality are in-group
members (we return to this latter point later in this report). However, causal inference in these
studies is limited by their reliance on correlational designs. If religious devotion is related to
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prosocial behavior in some contexts, it cannot be conclusively ruled out that having a prosocial
disposition causes one to be religious, or that a third variable, such as dispositional empathy or
guilt-proneness, causes both prosocial and religious tendencies. Recent controlled experiments
have addressed this issue by experimentally inducing religious thinking and subsequently
measuring prosocial behavior.
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
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4. Experimental Evidence: Religious Priming If religious belief has a causal effect on prosocial tendencies, then experimentally-induced
religious thoughts should increase prosocial behavior in controlled conditions. If so, subtle
religious reminders may reduce cheating, curb selfish behavior, and increase generosity towards
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strangers. This hypothesis was tested and supported in two anonymous Dictator Game
experiments, one with a sample of university students, and another with non-student adults in
Canada (Shariff and Norenzayan 2007). In one experiment, adult non-student participants were
randomly assigned to three groups: participants in the religious prime group unscrambled
sentences that contained words such as God, divine, and spirit; the secular prime group
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unscrambled sentences with words such as civic, jury, police; and the control group unscrambled
sentences with entirely neutral content. Each participant subsequently played an anonymous
double-blind one-shot Dictator Game. (Post-experimental interviews showed that participants
were unaware of religious content and remained naïve concerning the hypothesis being tested).
Compared to the control, nearly twice as much money was offered by subjects in the religious
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prime group, who not only showed a quantitative increase in generosity but also a qualitative
shift in social norms. In the control group, the modal response was selfish: most players pocketed
the full ten dollar stake allotted to them. In the religious prime group, the mode shifted to
equality: participants split the money evenly. Of particular interest, the secular prime group
showed the same pattern as the religious prime group, suggesting that secular mechanisms, when
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they are available, can also encourage generosity.
These findings have been replicated with a Chilean Catholic sample, showing similar religious
priming effects on generosity in the Dictator Game, and on cooperation levels in the Prisoner’s
Dilemma Game (Ahmed 2011). Religious primes have also been shown to reduce cheating
among student samples in North America (Randolph-Seng and Nielsen 2007), as well as in
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children (Piazza, Bering, and Ingram, 2011). McKay et al. (2010) found that subliminal religious
priming increased third-party costly punishment of unfair behavior in a Swiss sample, but only
for religious participants who had previously donated to a religious charity (see Laurin et al. in
press, for similar results regarding altruistic punishment).
There is some evidence that priming effects are to some extent parochial as well as prosocial, as
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prime-induced religious prosociality is sensitive to group boundaries. This question is open for
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
9
detailed investigation. Currently we know of one preliminary study with Canadian Christians
(Shariff and Norenzayan unpublished data) suggesting that, in a one-shot Dictator game,
religiously primed Christian givers were most generous towards a Christian receiver, less
generous towards a stranger with unknown religious affiliation, and even less generous towards a
5
Muslim receiver (playing with a Muslim receiver was the equivalent of not being primed with
religious words). This is not surprising given that human prosocial behavior is shaped by
parochial concerns (Koopmans and Rebers 2009).
In summary, a small but growing literature shows that the arrow of causality goes from religion
to a variety of prosocial behaviors, including generosity, honesty, cooperation, and altruistic
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punishment. Next we examine the psychological mechanisms underlying these religious priming
effects, and explore evidence that these effects are due – at least in part – to perceptions of being
under supernatural monitoring.
5. Why Do Religious Reminders Increase Prosociality? What are the psychological processes that might explain the empirical link between religious
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primes and prosociality? Two distinct accounts suggest themselves. The supernatural monitoring
account argues that heightened awareness of being under social surveillance increases
prosociality. Thoughts of religions invariably activate reminders that God or gods -- omniscient
and morally concerned judges – are watching (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012). Granted, as an
ultrasocial species, humans can be prosocial even when no one is watching (Henrich and Henrich
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2007; Barmettler et al. in press). Nevertheless, being under social surveillance encourages
prosociality. A large number of studies show that feelings of anonymity – even illusory
anonymity such as the act of wearing dark glasses or sitting in a dimly lit room – increase the
likelihood of selfishness and cheating (Zhong et al 2010; see also Hoffman et al. 1994).
Conversely, social surveillance, for example being in front of cameras or audiences, has the
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opposite effect. Even incidental and subtle exposure to representations of eyes encourages good
behavior towards strangers in the laboratory (Haley and Fessler 2005; Rigdon et al. 2009) and in
real-world settings (Bateson et al. 2006; but see Fehr and Schneider 2009, for a critique). As the
saying goes, “watched people are nice people.” It is no surprise, then, that the notion of
supernatural watchers who observe, punish, and reward morally relevant behaviors has culturally
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spread in prosocial religions.
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
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A second possibility is the behavioral priming or ideomotor account. The idea behind this
hypothesis is that prosocial behavior is more likely if concepts related to benevolence or
generosity are nonconsciously activated (e.g., Bargh et al. 2001). If thoughts of God are
associated with notions of benevolence and charity, then priming these thoughts may activate
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prosocial behavior, just as activating the social stereotype of the “elderly” increases behaviors
consistent with it, such as slow walking speed (Bargh and Chartrand 1999) (for this
interpretation, see Randolph-Sengh and Nielsen 2007; Pichon et al 2007). To be clear, these two
accounts are not mutually exclusive, and in fact may operate together to produce prosocial
effects of religion. The vital question is not whether ideomotor effects result from religious
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primes -- they almost certainly do. Instead, it is important to ask whether supernatural monitoring
effects also result from religious primes.
What evidence can distinguish the supernatural watcher account from behavioral-priming
processes? Norenzayan et al (2010) discuss three empirical criteria. First, if the supernatural
watcher account is at play, religious primes should arouse both feelings of external authorship
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for events and perceptions of being under social surveillance independent of any prosocial
behavior. Second, if religious priming effects are weaker or nonexistent for non-believers, then
the effect could not be solely due to ideomotor processes, which are argued to be impervious to
prior explicit beliefs or attitudes associated with the behavior (for example, see Bargh et al 2001;
Bargh and Chartrand, 1999). This is because everyone, including non-believers, is aware of
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(though they do not necessarily endorse) the association between religious concepts and
benevolence. Therefore, if ideomotor processes are solely responsible for these effects,
awareness should be sufficient to trigger priming effects. Third, differing perceptions of
supernatural agents can disentangle these two accounts. Specifically, the supernatural monitoring
hypothesis predicts that the belief that God is punitive should encourage more prosociality,
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whereas the ideomotor account would lead to the contrary expectation -- that belief in a
benevolent God is a stronger motivator for prosocial behavior.
Addressing the first question, several religious priming experiments clearly separate the felt
presence of a supernatural agent from their prosocial outcomes. Dijksterhuis et al. (2008) found
that after being subliminally primed with the word “God,” believers (but not atheists) were more
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likely to ascribe an outcome to an external source of agency, rather than their own actions. In
four studies, Gervais and Norenzayan (2012) followed up on this line of reasoning and found that
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
11
thinking of God does, indeed, influence variables that are sensitive to perceived social
surveillance, independent of any ideomotor effects associated with benevolence or prosociality.
The results suggest that religious primes trigger not only notions of benevolence, but also
experiences associated with mind perception (that is, feelings of being observed by an intentional
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agent) as the supernatural monitoring hypothesis predicts (for evidence that religious agents
trigger mind perception, see also Norenzayan et al. 2012).
To address the second question, it is necessary to re-examine the priming literature in light of the
second criterion: do God primes influence behavior independent of prior belief, or are these
effects confined to believers? Ideomotor processes typically do not interact with prior belief. A
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supernatural monitoring account, on the other hand, would suggest that people who believe in the
actual existence of supernatural beings should be most susceptible to these primes, whereas
nonbelievers should be less susceptible. The answer to this question is also crucially important
for debates about evolutionary origins of religion. Genetic adaptationist accounts of religious
prosociality (for a discussion, see Schloss and Murray 2011) would predict that everyone, even
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self-declared atheists, are responsive to supernatural monitoring effects (e.g., Bering 2011).
Cultural evolutionary accounts of religious prosociality, on the other hand, are more compatible
with the prediction that responsiveness to supernatural monitoring is culturally variable (e.g.,
Norenzayan and Shariff 2008; Henrich et al. 2010). To be clear, socialization with culturally
variable concepts of the divine could produce effects on prosociality that supplement or compete
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with universal religious tendencies to behave prosocially. Therefore, cultural variability is not
incompatible with a genetic adaptationist account, provided there is no complete absence of an
effect for non-believers. Moreover, the answer to this question reveals critical details about the
psychology of atheism, a topic of great importance ripe for research, but unfortunately beyond
the scope of this report.
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A review of the (admittedly limited) relevant evidence suggests that at least some nonbelievers
are impervious to religious priming effects, a finding that is compatible with the idea that
supernatural monitoring plays a part in religious priming effects. There is currently mixed
evidence as to whether religious priming effects (typically bypassing conscious awareness)
interact with explicit belief (see Norenzayan et al. 2010, for discussion). Some studies have
30
found religious priming effects—irrespective of the explicit prior religious belief of
participants—on honesty (Randolph-Sengh and Nielsen 2007), generosity in the dictator game
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
12
(Shariff and Norenzayan 2007, Study 1), public self-awareness (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012,
Study 3) and prosocial intentions (Pichon et al 2007). Several other studies, however, found
significant interaction with prior religious belief, reflecting null effects for non-believers
(Dijksterhuis et al. 2008; Shariff and Norenzayan 2007, Study 2; McKay et al. 2010; Gervais and
5
Norenzayan 2012; Piazza et al., 2011; Laurin et al., in press). The findings of Gervais and
Norenzayan (2012) are particularly instructive. Meta-analyses revealed that, for believers,
religious primes increased perceived social surveillance across 3 studies (p < .0001, Cohen’s
d= .65), whereas, for nonbelievers, religious reminders did not significantly affect perceived
social surveillance (p = .38, Cohen’s d= -.20). Laurin and colleagues found similarly that the
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effects of reminders of God were specific to believers only, and led to increased punishing
behvavior. Furthermore, believing that God is punishing caused less punishing behavior
(presumably because participants could offload punishing duties to God). This last point is the
opposite of what one would predict on the ideomotor account.
Further examination of the priming studies portrays a revealing pattern: all the priming studies
15
that have shown no interaction with prior belief have also recruited exclusively American
university student samples. However, student atheists, particularly in religious America, might
be “soft atheists.” In one religious priming experiment that recruited a non-student adult sample
in Vancouver, Canada (Shariff and Norenzayan 2007, Study 2), the effect of the prime emerged
for believers, but disappeared entirely for “hard” atheists. Similarly, in the majority nonreligious
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Netherlands, Dutch student nonbelievers were not responsive to religious priming effects, even
when they were presented subliminally (Dijksterhuis et al. 2008). Finally, in the more secular
environment of Vancouver, we have found across several studies no reliable priming effects on
student nonbelievers (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012).
Finally, consistent with the theoretical idea that punishments are superior to rewards in
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sustaining prosocial behavior, there is a negative relationship between cheating behavior and the
degree to which people endorse a vision of God as punitive and judging, whereas cheating rates
increase with the belief that God is benevolent and forgiving (Shariff and Norenzayan 2011;
Debono et al, unpublished data). Consistent with these experimental findings, cross national
analyses (Shariff & Rhemtulla, 2012) reveal that, controlling for a number of relevant socio-
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economic and psychological variables such as GDP, economic inequality, belief in God, and
relevant personality dimensions, belief in hell is negatively related to crime rates, whereas belief
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
13
in heaven has the opposite effect. As with the Laurin et. al. findings just mentioned, these results
are difficult to reconcile with a purely ideomotor account, which presumably would lead to the
opposite expectation (i.e., that a benevolent and kind God would more clearly fit the prosocial
stereotype that causes greater prosocial behavior and less anti-social behavior; and that reminders
5
of a benevolent God would reduce punishing behavior).
To summarize what we know about the psychological mechanisms underlying religious priming,
several lines of evidence show that religious reminders increase the perception of external
authorship of events and perceptions of social surveillance independent of any prosocial
consequences. In addition, there is mounting evidence that the effects of religious primes are
10
most effective among believers, and there is provocative (though preliminary) evidence that
mature nonbelievers are less susceptible, and possibly immune, to these primes. A reasonable
initial conclusion from the empirical evidence is that, at the very least, both accounts remain
viable. Therefore, the supernatural monitoring hypothesis and the ideomotor hypothesis may
reflect the operation of independent psychological mechanisms that link religion to prosocial
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tendencies. These mechanisms also have differing theoretical implications for the relationship
between religion and prosociality. Whereas the ideomotor hypothesis posits that the link between
religion and prosociality is the consequence of a cultural association reflected at the cognitive
level, the supernatural monitoring hypothesis speaks to the more basic evolutionary question of
why religion might cause large scale anonymous prosociality in humans. If reminders of
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moralizing gods make people feel watched, then beliefs in moralizing gods, who can monitor
social interactions even when no humans are watching, may have been instrumental for
promoting large-scale human cooperation.
6. Ethnographic and Historical Evidence: How Supernatural Monitoring Contributed to Large-­‐Scale Prosociality 25
Over time and as groups gain in size, morality and religion move from disconnected to
increasingly intertwined, and gods become more powerful, moralizing and interventionist
(Wright 2009). Ethnographic work shows that in foraging and hunting groups, such as the Hadza
or the San, religion does not have a moral dimension and the gods are largely indifferent to
human moral affairs (Boyer 2001; Swanson 1966). In an earlier assessment of the ethnographic
30
record, Swanson (1966 p. 153) concluded, “The people of modern Western nations are so
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
14
steeped in these beliefs which bind religion and morality, that they find it hard to conceive of
societies which separate the two. Yet most anthropologists see such a separation as prevailing in
primitive societies.” Here we briefly highlight ethnographic and historical evidence that indicates
that across groups and over time, supernatural monitoring co-evolved with increasingly large,
5
complex, cooperative societies.
Stark (2001) found that only 23.9% of the 427 cultures in the cross cultural database
acknowledge a god who is active in human affairs and is specifically supportive of human
morality. Religions with such gods are, in fact, peculiar. Yet, the vast majority of human beings
today live in prosocial religious groups with big moralizing gods. Going further, in one notable
10
analysis using the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, Roes and Raymond (2003) showed that the
variability in supernatural sanctioning found in the ethnographic record is correlated with group
size -- the larger the group size, the more likely the group has culturally sanctioned omniscient,
all-powerful, morally concerned deities who directly observe, reward, and punish social behavior.
This highlights one problem with much work in the cognitive science of religion, as Christianity
15
is often used as a representative religion, when in fact it’s a rather unusual religion.
These ethnographic findings converge with what can be gleaned from historical analyses. The
archaeological record is of course limited, but available evidence hints at the possibility that the
expansion of regular rituals and the construction of religiously significant monumental
architecture co-emerged with increasing societal size, political complexity, and reliance on
20
agriculture (Marcus and Flannery 2004; Cauvin, 1999). Evidence for this can be found in
Çatalhöyük, a 9500 old Neolithic site in southern Anatolia (for a discussion, see Whitehouse and
Hodder 2010). The excavation of Göbekli Tepe, a 11,000 year-old complex of monumental
architecture, suggests that it may have been one of the world’s first temples, where huntergatherers possibly congregated and engaged in organized religious rituals (Schmidt 2000).
25
Once the written historical record begins it becomes much easier to establish clear links between
large-scale cooperation, ritual elaboration, and powerful gods who police human behaviour. This
historical work is ongoing, and many questions are being actively debated. However, some
historical patterns have emerged. The best documented of the historical work looks at Abrahamic
faiths. Wright (2009) provides a useful summary of textual evidence that reveals the gradual
30
evolution of the Abrahamic God from a rather limited, whimsical, tribal war god—a subordinate
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
15
in the Pantheon—to the unitary, supreme, moralizing deity of two of the world’s largest religious
communities. Evidence from early China also shows that supernatural monitoring played a key
role in the emergence of the first large-scale societies in East Asia (see Slingerland et al. this
volume). In an analysis that compares the longevity of religious and secular communes in 19th
5
century America, Sosis and Bressler (2003) found that religious communes out-competed secular
ones, and this survival advantage was statistically explained by the costly displays and
restrictions on behaviors that religious communes imposed on their members (Henrich 2009).
(Presumably these behaviors increased in-group commitment and cooperation). The
ethnographic and historical record, taken together with the empirical evidence reviewed above,
10
points to the idea that religious beliefs and practices played a key role in the spread of prosocial
groups in the last 12,000 years.
7. Outstanding Questions We conclude with some outstanding questions for further research that can advance theoretical
work on the origins of religious prosociality, and invite discussion about future directions.
15
•
An important extension would be to conduct religious priming studies in smaller-scale
societies, where reminders of morally indifferent gods could be compared to the
Abrahamic God or the powerful, moralizing gods of other world religions. These
comparisons would help researchers tease apart cultural evolutionary explanations from
genetic adaptationist explanations of religious prosociality.
20
•
A deeper understanding of the psychology underlying atheism also can shed light on
competing explanations for the evolutionary origins of religion. For example, genetic
adaptationist arguments for religion would presumably predict that even atheists are
responsive to nonconscious religious priming. Cultural evolutionary explanations, in
contrast, would predict that at least some atheists would be immune to religious priming.
25
Studies could compare “atheist converts” with “lifetime atheists” to clarify the extent to
which religious prosociality is culturally learned. These questions are ripe for empirical
investigation.
•
Historical and cross-cultural comparative work can be done to examine the extent to
which secular alternatives to religious prosociality — institutions such as courts,
30
contracts, and police — can culminate in religion’s decline in societies. This again could
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Norenzayan, Henrich, and Slingerland
16
help us understand the extent to which religious prosociality is genetically fixed,
culturally learned, or both.
•
It is important to tease apart the relative effects of various components of “religion” on
prosociality. Future studies can assess in a more fine-grained fashion the extent to which
5
religious prosociality is explained by belief in supernatural monitors, supernatural
punishment mechanisms such as belief in heaven vs. hell, karma, fate, as well as by
various forms of extravagant displays of faith often found in ritual participation.
•
Beyond anecdotal evidence, we know relatively little about the social boundaries of
religious prosociality. Does it weaken, or break down, where the religious in-group ends
10
and the out-group begins? Or is religious prosociality, in some respects, extended
universally? Can religious prosociality be harnessed and co-opted to extend cooperation
and solve collective action problems?
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